Experience Counts…but its location?

This week, I had the opportunity to help internationally educated professionals land their first jobs in Canada. These well seasoned engineers, software developers and project leaders have extensive credentials and experiences gained at companies all over the world.

I asked them their biggest challenges they face finding jobs in Canada – many times over, it was accessing the right people and having local experience to reference in Canada. Happily, their first challenge is being addresses through outreach programs such as iWES from The Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). During our session, we focused on personal branding and select techniques people can use to raise their profile on the Internet. It was a pleasure working with them. They were very attentive and they had great questions.

The second point baffles me. IT issues, project management fundamentals and project risk management are pretty much global in nature. A major telecom integration project in Africa, or network administration job in Brazil or a large scale ERP deployment in Indonesia all have the same properties as those in Canada or the United States. From my perspective, information technology talent can be from around the corner, or from around the world. The web can let me check global references, I can Google their bosses, Skype their references, anywhere in the world. It really makes no matter where someone is from and where they acquired their experiences. A qualified, hard working candidate from Asia or anywhere in the world deserves equal consideration.

The business of IT is by definition global in nature…as is change management and project management. Looking to source the right candidate for a position? Consider a hard-working and experienced internationally trained profesionsal. They are out there!